How Not to Marry an Earl

by Christine Merrill

  ‘All his beatings managed to teach me was what sort of man I did not want to be when I grew up. As for my opinion on clever young ladies?’ He gave her an encouraging smile. ‘If you think I am in error, do not spare my feelings over it. There is nothing worse than being allowed to blunder on in the wrong direction when there is someone right at hand that could set me straight.’

  Their conversation appeared to have affected her for she fumbled with the box, unable to complete the next move. She held it out to him with a pleading look, asking for rescue.

  He shook his head, smiled and waited.

  Encouraged, she took a breath, applied herself and had figured it out in a moment’s time, sliding the sides away and lifting out a smaller box, hidden inside the first one.

  ‘Bravo,’ he said, clapping his hands. ‘Now open it and show me what we have found.’

  Some time during the course of the evening she had lost the guarded manner she’d had at dinner. She did not hesitate or try to shield the truth from him as she undid the last latch.

  He held his breath as she slowly lifted the lid to reveal...

  ‘Nothing?’ She turned it upside down and shook it, then tapped the sides, searching for another trick.

  She passed it to him and he did the same and found nothing. ‘Some sort of family joke, perhaps?’

  She frowned. ‘If so, it is not funny.’

  ‘What is it that you were hoping to find?’ he asked, though he was sure he knew.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Nothing at all.’

  He had known her less than a day. She had no reason to trust him. But the lie annoyed him more than it should have. He picked up the pieces of the box, fitting them back together, sliding panels and latching latches until it was back as it had been, when they’d found it. ‘Then, congratulations, Miss Strickland. If you were searching for nothing, you seem to have found it. And now, if you will excuse me, I must retire. The audit will begin tomorrow and we must hope that it is more productive than tonight.’

  Chapter Seven

  When Charity bothered to imagine her future, it had always included marriage. Though her sisters feared that her lack of interest in society indicated that she meant to remain a spinster by choice, it had never been her intent to spend her life sequestered in the solitude of the family library. She wanted a husband and children and a home of her own, just as her sisters did.

  Judging by the besotted way they looked at their husbands, Charity suspected she would be an aunt by the end of the year. The loneliness that had begun creeping into her life since their absence increased at the thought of dandling someone else’s baby on her knee. It reinforced her desire for a husband of her own and the children he was likely to give her.

  But because something was wanted, that did not mean it would be easy to get. As the years passed, and her sisters grew ever lovelier, Charity had grown more plain. She had only to look in the mirror to realise that it was unlikely that the suitors she might have would be of the handsome and dashing variety.

  There were probably any number of quiet, scholarly, not particularly attractive gentlemen that might do. Since such men enjoyed libraries far more than ballrooms, they were surprisingly elusive. When she’d happened upon them thus far, they thought themselves so intelligent that they deserved a wife who would listen more than she talked. She had not expected that they would be even more averse to outspoken women than her grandfather had been.

  It was clear that something would be needed to sweeten the pot. Since there was no dowry to be had from the Comstock fortunes, she would have to find one for herself. Thus, she had begun her search for the missing diamonds and the plan to keep just enough of them to make herself attractive to men more poor than particular.

  But none of her plans had ever included falling in love. Though her sisters might be convinced that they had married for love, Charity was not even sure the emotion existed in the sense that most girls understood it. She loved her sisters, of course. And her grandmother. She had even loved her grandfather in some hard-to-define way.

  But to expect some grand, lifelong passion from marriage was far too impractical. Contentment would be sufficient. She sought a companionable union with a like-minded gentleman who would allow her autonomy in the running of the household and a decently stocked bookshelf. In exchange, she would make no real demands on her husband, allowing him to come and go as he pleased free of tantrums, megrims and excessive millinery bills.

  Thus, when love came to Charity Strickland, it struck like an ambush from behind. One minute, she had been slightly annoyed at the condescension of her attractive visitor in thinking that he could best her at a game she knew well. Then, they had begun to play and she’d realised that Augustus Potts was the man of her dreams.

  He had lulled her into a false security with a two-knights defence, which was just the sort of primitive, aggressive move that a man might rely on. But once he’d recognised her skill, his game had grown increasingly subtle to accommodate her. While she had initially thought his offer of a handicap was an insult, she learned that it was an attempt to keep the game fair. He’d shown no mercy, simply because she was a female.

  By the time he’d put her in check, her pulse had fluttered with excitement. And when he’d declared ‘mate in three moves’, she had been ready to hand him her heart, as well.

  Being in love with Potts had been the worst ten minutes of her life. Why did the object of her adoration have to be a god walking the earth and not an average man who might return her feelings? Why couldn’t he at least be willing to stay in England? Why must she break her heart over someone who was brilliant, beautiful and totally unattainable?

  Then she had realised that the questions were, in fact, the answer. She did not love him because he was perfect. She did not love him at all. What she felt was lust. To desire a man like Potts was not just normal, it was sensible. If she was longing to be seduced, the fact that he did not plan to remain in her life or her country was actually an advantage and not an inconvenience.

  One question still remained. What did she intend to do about these new feelings?

  It had come as a shock to find herself inviting him not just into her bedroom, but on to her bed, so that they might solve the puzzle box. When Grandmama had taught them the basics of etiquette, she had explained that one never brought a man to one’s room as one might a woman. When presented with a nearby bed, men were unable to contain their base urges.

  Some men, perhaps, but not this one. Potts had simply given her an odd look and sat down beside her on the mattress, more interested in the puzzle and its contents than he was in her.

  So she did something that she had never done in her life. It had taken years of practice to not simply blurt out corrections when she knew better than the people around her. After years of scolding from her sisters and grandmother, she had learned that it was one thing to be the smartest person in the room and quite another to rub the fact in the faces of everyone around her.

  But tonight, she had looked at the man sitting next to her on her bed and for the first time in her life she had feigned ignorance. She fumbled with a perfectly obvious clue in the puzzle box, handing it to him to solve, hoping to make him like her better.

  Instead of being flattered by her need for help, he had raised an eyebrow and handed it back to her, waiting patiently until she had solved it herself. If she had not already wanted him to the last fibre of her being, she had after that.

  His adding that he liked being corrected when wrong was like the straw that broke the camel, or the last shot to sink a battleship. Wanting him in secret would not do. She must find a way to have him, or be had by him, even if only for a night. Action must be taken now, or he would be gone and she would not even have a memory.

  She lay awake most of the night, putting her prodigious intelligence to work on a plan of attack that would be more
successful than her chess game had been. But even as she had lost it, she had won knowledge of her adversary that could be used to her advantage.

  He had played the game to get access to the box, only to learn that it was empty. She had been disappointed, but only mildly so. It had been the last in a long line of clues from letters and journals and diaries, and not the first blind alley she had wandered down. She would backtrack and find her way again.

  But if he was eager to help her? She smiled. She could invite him on the treasure hunt, offering him information she had already discovered and discounted. He would be just as consumed by the mystery as she had been and willing to do anything to learn more, even if it meant seducing an innocent virgin to steal her secrets.

  She gave an involuntary shudder of delight. If she handled him carefully, he might leave Comstock Manor knowing no more than when he came. And she would have a beautiful memory and the treasure all to herself.

  * * *

  Before going down to breakfast the next morning, she summoned Dill again, perplexing the girl by asking for help two days in a row. The end result was a primrose day gown that Charity had always rejected as being too likely to show the dirt and a hairstyle that was not as elaborate as last evening’s curls, but softer than her usual tightly pinned braids.

  As an afterthought, Dill gave Pepper a good brushing and tied a yellow ribbon about his neck, saying, ‘If he means to follow you everywhere, he should learn to look like a lapdog and not a rat-catcher.’

  It was probably a mistake, for the little dog seemed to loathe Potts and the feeling was returned in kind. But as usual, the little dog was staring at her, pathetically eager to follow wherever she went.

  Charity stared down at him. ‘If I must pretend to be tame, so should you. You may come downstairs with me. But one snap and it is off to the stables for the day.’

  Pepper wagged his tail, as if he understood and agreed, but it was more likely an attempt to rearrange his fleas. Then he trotted happily at her side as she went down the stairs to the ground floor.

  When she arrived in the breakfast room, she found it empty. There was evidence that Potts had been there before her: a footman was clearing away an empty plate and brushing toast crumbs from the table. She glanced at the mantel clock and saw that it was barely nine. When she touched the empty teacup sitting beside his place it was stone cold.

  The servant clearing away guessed her question before she could ask and murmured, ‘Half past six, miss. He was done well before seven.’

  Without bothering to sit, she helped herself to a rasher of bacon from a covered plate. ‘Did he say where he was going, after?’

  ‘To work, miss.’

  She chewed thoughtfully. Unless the job was to gather eggs while the chickens still slept, she could not imagine the need to rise before nine to do it. Since he was auditing a property that had been collecting dust for centuries, he had got a ridiculously early start. He must be somewhere in the house, but with forty rooms to account for, she could be searching for hours.

  She looked down at the dog sitting patiently at her feet, and tossed him a scrap of bacon for incentive. Then she held out another piece, then pulled it away and offered the rumpled napkin sitting beside his place. ‘Find him.’

  The dog gave a single, long sniff and ran out into the hall.

  Charity helped herself to a bun and followed the sound of his barks.

  When she caught up to Pepper, he was outside the closed door of her grandfather’s study. She hissed at the dog to distract him from scratching at the woodwork and tossed him his reward. Then she reached for the door handle and paused, unable to bring herself to open it. The Earl had been dead for over two years. There was no rule, written or unwritten, that said the room was out of bounds until Comstock arrived. She had been in the study many times herself, even using it to write letters and read.

  But on those occasions, the door had been left wide open.

  ‘Doors are closed for a reason, Charity. If you cannot respect that, we will have to find a way to teach you.’

  Perhaps that was true. But there was no reason for this one to be closed today. Before she could question the action, she grabbed the handle and yanked it open.

  Potts sat in the Earl’s chair, his feet up on the desk, reading her grandfather’s appointment book. At the sound of the opening door, he looked up slowly and smiled, but made no move to adjust his posture.

  For a moment, the sight of a man in that chair at all froze her to immobility on the doorstep. There had been too many arguments here, so many lectures and punishments that she could see a worn spot on the carpet where she stood to receive them. Her fear of the room had dwindled to close to nothing in the two years since Comstock’s death. But a new Comstock was coming, like a storm on the horizon. If she did not find a way to escape this house, it would all begin again.

  Then she reminded herself that it was only Potts, young, handsome and smiling, and as different from an earl as it was possible to be.

  With a snarl, Pepper launched himself from the doorway, making a desperate lunge for his coat sleeve.

  He was up and out of the chair in a flash, causing the dog to miss by inches and fall back to the floor with a snap of his jaws.

  His action brought a fresh flood of emotion to chase away her fear, as she watched male thighs encased in tight britches uncrossing and swinging clear of the desk, the curve of his hip revealed as he leapt clear and snatched his coat-tails away from the dog. She had to fight the urge to grin stupidly or perhaps to drool, as Pepper had at the sight of her bacon, for her mouth seemed to be hanging open at the sight of him. She closed it and forced her lips into a cool smile. ‘Are you afraid of dogs, Potts?’

  He returned her smile, probably unaware of the tumult inside her for his eyes never left the dog. ‘I normally get along quite well with them.’

  ‘But not this one, apparently.’

  He stared down at Pepper with obvious loathing. ‘Because there is something wrong with it. Damage to the brain, perhaps. He was rescued from a burlap sack, just as he was to be thrown into the Delaware by a despicable little boy. He came out of the bag, an ungrateful cur who would, quite literally, bite the hand that feeds him.’

  Charity produced another morsel of breakfast from a napkin in her pocket and whistled.

  The dog sat up on his haunches, wagged and received his treat, taking great care to touch her fingers with nothing more than a grateful swipe of his tongue.

  She looked back at Potts. ‘I see no such problem.’ She looked back to the dog. ‘Run along now, Pepper. The nasty man and I must discuss why he is lounging in the Earl’s study, for I see no sign of an inventory in progress.’

  ‘Because I have been busy,’ he said, his smile never faltering as he watched the dog trot from the room.

  ‘You have but one job in this house,’ she reminded him. ‘If not that, what can you be busy with?’

  ‘This,’ he said, pulling a folded sheet of parchment from his pocket and handing it to her.

  She felt a weird prickling on her skin at the sight of it. Surprise. Excitement. No. It was amazement. She thought she’d known the house well and the secrets contained in it. Her plan had been to tantalise Potts with them, to seduce or control him. But he had produced, seemingly out of thin air, a clue she had never seen before.

  The largish rectangle of paper had been folded carefully into fourths and had not a wrinkle in it beyond the creases that had caused. She turned it over, then held it to the light and saw no sign of printing on either side. The only irregularity was a series of small, rectangular holes spaced about the page at random intervals. In some spots the paper was almost intact, in others, perforated so often that it reminded her of lace.

  She looked back to Potts. ‘Where did you find this?’

  He pointed to the puzzle box, which was now resting on the corner of her gran
dfather’s desk and shut up again to be the impervious block of wood that it had been when they’d found it. Without another word, he picked it up and began to solve it, his fingers flying through the steps to reach the inner container. Then he opened that, as well, tapping each side like a conjurer doing a trick.

  He set it aside and picked up the case again, completing several more steps until a tray slid out from the bottom of it. Though now empty, it was just deep enough to contain a single sheet of carefully folded paper. ‘Voila!’ He gave a little bow and looked at her as though expecting applause.

  She resisted the temptation to offer it.

  He responded with a slightly hurt expression and offered more information, as if trying to impress her with his cleverness. ‘It is a key code of some kind, is it not? The paper should fit over a page in a book or journal and reveal a message. But it is none of the books in this room, for I have checked them all.’

  He was right, of course. And the study was one of the places a logical person would search. The wrong one, but a logical choice. It did not explain, however, why he would be reading a diary that was far smaller than the page the key must fit on. That behaviour hinted that, though he was interested in the treasure, he might be searching for something else that she knew nothing about. She filed the fact in her mind and returned to the matter at hand.

  ‘If you are looking for a book, have you considered looking in the library?’

  For a moment, his face went blank. Then, his expressionless face split in a dazzling grin. ‘There is a library.’ From his tone of wonder, she might as well have told him they kept a dragon in the cellar. Surely they had libraries in America.

  ‘I do not know my way around the house or perhaps I’d have stumbled upon it before coming here,’ he added. ‘Lead me to it.’ He paused again. ‘Please.’

  She smiled to herself, surprised. Had anyone ever expressed an eagerness to see that particular room of the house? If they had, they had certainly not done it twice. Even the family used words like ‘gloomy’ and ‘uncomfortable’ when they spoke of it. It was why the space had been abandoned to her. ‘It is not surprising that you did not find it, for it is rather out of the common way. Follow me.’